FAQ

How can I be on the redteam?

This is easily the most common question that we get. We try to keep redteam here pretty open and inclusive but we do have a few rules for our members.

1. You must have competed in at least 3 competitions as a blue teamer
Your first semester (at minimum) should be spent learning about systems and getting familiar with competitions. This is critical in order to be an effective redteam member. In addition to familiarity, Blue and Red team have very complimentary skills. You will learn a lot from blueteaming. Because of this requirement, it is almost impossible to be on redteam within your first semester at school.

2. You must be willing to put in the time and effort to be on redteam
Often times students are asked to work on a project in order to be on redteam. This project is a test of your work ethic and willingness to help out the team. Redteam does get to create fun tools and work on projects that are super interesting, but often times we also have to work on projects that are more of a necessity. Redteam often spends late nights working in the labs, perfecting our tooling and scripts. The time spent side-by-side in the labs builds teamwork and keeps you familiar with the projects that other members are working on. If you are not willing to put in the time, don’t try to be on redteam.

3. You must be fair to all blueteams
RIT Redteam often competes against teams from several different schools as well as against their friends and peers. It is very important to maintain fairness and impartiality in these situations. That being said, we will be more aggressive against teams with higher skill levels as that is part of the competition.

4. You must be a team player
Redteam is a group effort, even the most intelligent team members cannot redteam alone. If you are not willing to be a team player and be respectful to your peers (Blue, red, or white team), then we have no interest in the talents that you might bring to the table. We work closely with all the different teams in order to effectively be part of the competition. Collaboration is critical and we believe this skill will transfer well to the real world.

Can you waive the requirements for me?

We hear this question a lot as well, the short answer: “Yes, we can”. But most likely, we WILL NOT waive the requirements for you.

We hear many different reasons why people think we should waive the requirements, hopefully this will explain why these reasons are invalid:

I have extensive experience doing pentesting/OSCP/Hack the Box/etc.

Red team is not pentesting, the skills do not directly transfer over to what we do, we write post exploitation tools to give the blue teams something to find. While diverse knowledge will help you in redteaming, this alone is not a reason to waive the requirements.

I have lots of skills in incident response/blue teaming, but I have not competed in 3 competitions

A huge reason that we require you to be on blue teams is because of the experience and feel of competitions. Working as a team in high stress environments is a valuable skill. This is one of many reasons why blue teaming is important. RITSEC members compete in around 6 competitions per year, If you dedicate yourself to learning and participating in these competions, it is possible to start working on redteam tools before the end of your first year.

I am smarter than most other freshman

Hopefully, the journey toward fulfilling the requirements will teach you how much you need to learn. It is extremely rare to be on redteam within your first year at RIT.

How is it fair that redteam is able to prebake on machines?

Prebaking on machines gives blue teams something todo right at the start of the competition. The competitions are meant to simulate droping a team inside of an infected environment. As such we have to give them something to look for.